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Allan Solomonow papers

Ms. Coll. 1247

This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held
at the University of Pennsylvania. Unless
otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our
reading room, and not digitally available through the web.

Primarily English with a very small amount of Arabic, French, and Hebrew.

Abstract:

Allan Wayne Solomonow (born 1937) is a Jewish peace activist who was active in New York City and the San Francisco Bay area
from the 1970s through the 2010s. His particular concern was Middle East peace, especially the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. This collection documents Solomonow's life's work and primarily comprise his professional papers related to the
Jewish peace community as well as collected secondary material that informed his thinking.

Biography/History

Allan Wayne Solomonow (born 1937) is a Jewish peace activist who was active in New York City and the San Francisco Bay area
from the 1970s through the 2010s. His particular concern was Middle East peace, especially the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.

Solomonow was born in Omaha, Nebraska to Edward Joseph Solomonow and Sarah Toby Kaplan and was step-son to Joseph's second
wife, Frances L. Solomonow. His father was in the military and his early childhood was marked with frequent moves. In 1945,
the family settled in Los Angeles, California, where Solomonow graduated from Alexander Hamilton High School in 1955. Solomonow
attended the University of Illinois and the University of California, Berkeley, where he received a BA in political science
in 1960. While in college, Solomonow was a member of Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity and was on the executive committee and served
as Secretary-General of the 15th College Model United Nations at UC Berkeley. He was also involved in SLATE (named for a slate
of candidates), the influential New Left student group active between 1957 and 1964. Solomonow also studied teaching at Antioch
University, New England, where he received a Master of Art in Teaching (MAT) in Social Sciences in 1965. In New York City,
Solomonow worked briefly for the Foundation for Integrative Education and as a teacher in the New York City Public Schools.

During the Vietnam War, Solomonow requested Conscientious Objector status on Jewish religious grounds. However, his case was
never acted upon and was deferred until past draft age. While directing the Counselor-In-Training program at Camp Ahimsa,
a project of the Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA), Solomonow was invited, in 1967, to be part of a demonstration at
the launching of the nuclear submarine, the "Will Rogers." During his speech, Solomonow spontaneously tore his signature off
a duplicate copy of his draft card and subsequently mailed the remainder of the card to the President of the United States.
He was prosecuted and sentenced in 1968 to a year in federal prison for the crime of "mutilating" a Selective Service document.
In October 1968, Solomonow entered Allenwood Federal Prison in Pennsylvania, where he estimated about a quarter of the population
were draft refusers. There he was assigned to teach what he described as "literacy to moonshiners and inner city blacks in
the prison's educational system." Solomonow was also involved in other anti-war protests and was the subject of
People v. Solomonow, 56 Misc. 2d 1050 (1968) - NY: Supreme Court 1968.

After being released from prison in 1969, Solomonow became the first national program director of the Jewish Peace Fellowship
(JPF), a nondenominational Jewish organization whose work centered at the time on support for Jewish Conscientious Objectors.
Among his accomplishments at JPF was editing the book
Roots of Jewish Nonviolence (Nyack, N.Y.: Jewish Peace Fellowship, 1970), a copy of which was sent by JPF to every draft board in the United States.

Solomonow left JPF in 1970 to become coordinator of the Committee on New Alternatives in the Middle East (CONAME), in New
York City. CONAME was begun in 1969, in a time when other US peace organizations had no formal Middle East program. Like Solomonow,
most of the founding members of CONAME were Jews (including Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk, Rabbi Everett Gendler, Irene Gendzier,
Paul Jacobs, Robert Jay Lifton, Seymour Melman, and Don Peretz). Solomonow's activities at CONAME included organizing speaking
opportunities throughout the United States for Palestinian-Israeli teams and developing support in the US for peace activists
in Israel and Palestine. Eventually the organization advocated for formal Israeli-Palestinian dialogue and encouraged the
end of settlement activity and military aid to Israel and the Arab countries. In 1972, Solomonow made his first trip to the
Middle East to meet with both Israeli and Palestinian peace community members, and to line up speakers to bring back to the
US.

In 1975, CONAME ceased operations when Solomonow left to begin the Middle East Program at the Fellowship of Reconciliation
(FOR), advocating for Israeli dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and support for an independent Palestinian
State. In 1975, he led the first interfaith peace tour to the region, an activity he would repeat dozens of times in the coming
decades.

In 1976, Solomonow founded the Middle East Peace Project (MEPP), a coalition of over 50 national and regional peace, justice,
and religious organizations. Its goal was to "increase the quantity and quality of Middle East peace education work in the
United States by serving as a resource to all who wish to use its good offices." The MEPP convened the Middle East Consultation
Group which consisted of program officers from various national organizations with Middle East peace programs. The organization
regularly distributed to its members literature on the Middle East though the Middle East Peace Literature Service which was
run cooperatively with the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Like CONAME before it, MEPP also sponsored Israeli and Palestinian
speakers on US tours.

Besides his paid work leading Jewish peace organizations, Solomonow was a member of the Jewish peace group Breira (1973-1977),
one of the earliest organizations to call for mutual Israeli-Palestinian recognition and a two-state solution to the crisis.
Eventually, Breira was brought down by attacks from conservative Jewish organizations. Later he became active in the New Jewish
Agenda (NJA) (1980-1992) and its Middle East Taskforce, eventually serving on the NJA steering committee. In 1980, he became
a Coordinator of the national Shalom Network, an all-volunteer organization of Jewish peace and social justice organizations
around the country. In its earliest years the organization operated out of Solomonow's offices at MEPP.

In 1983, Solomonow joined the staff of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) as Director of the Middle East Program
at their regional office in San Francisco. AFSC involvement in the Middle East goes back to 1949 when the Quaker organization
provided humanitarian relief to Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip and Galilee. Its American-based Middle East peace efforts
began in the 1970s and frequently involved cooperative work with organizations including CONAME, Breira and New Jewish Agenda.
Solomonow's work in the organization focused on educational initiatives in the US, promotion of Israeli and Palestinian speakers,
interreligious tours of the Middle East, and the advancement of nonviolent resistance to Israeli military occupation of the
Palestinian territories. During his long tenure at AFSC (1983-2009), Solomonow was the focus of several controversies, with
both Jewish American and Arab American individuals and organizations accusing him of biased work in the peace community.

In addition to the published works mentioned above, Solomonow also edited
Towards Middle East Dialogue: Responses to the Quakers' Search for Peace in the Middle East (New York : Committee on New Alternatives in the Middle East, 1972);
Resources for Middle East Information (Nyack, N.Y: Middle East Peace Literature Service, 1973);
The Great Berringer Debate (Nyack, N.Y.: Middle East Peace Literature Service, 1974);
Where We Stand: Official Statements of American Churches on the Middle East Conflict (New York: The Middle East Consultation Group, 1977); and
Israel and the PLO: Confronting the Unthinkable (St. Paul, Minn.: Middle East Peace Now, 1979).

Solomonow occasionally taught courses on Middle East peace and nonviolence at the University of California, Berkeley, and
the University of Utah. He and his wife, Ofelia Alayeto, are long-standing members of Kehila Synagogue in Piedmont, California,
and have two sons, Gregory and Seth Solomonow.

Scope and Contents

The Allan Solomonow papers document the Jewish peace activist's life's work and primarily comprise his professional papers
related to the Jewish peace community as well as collected secondary material that informed his thinking. There are five series
in the collection: I. General materials; II. Organizational and professional work; III. Topical materials; IV. Publications;
and V. Audiovisual materials.

The first series, "Personal and educational materials," contains several subseries including biographical material on Solomonow;
materials collected during his student years at University of California, Berkeley; personal correspondence; a collection
of personal materials including those associated with the celebration of Jewish holidays in the Solomonow family home; materials
used in courses he taught on the Middle East; a variety of mailing lists collected over the years; personal and professional
notes taken on legal pads; and a collection of Solomonow's own writings and speeches and the materials used in their preparation.

The second series, "Organizational and professional work," is divided into series by organization or project. This part of
the collection comprises material from Solomonow's work, whether paid or not, with the American Friend Service Committee (AFSC),
Breira, Committee of Americans for Peace in the Middle East (CAPME), Committee on New Alternatives in the Middle East (CONAME),
the Middle East Peace Project (MEPP) and the New Jewish Agenda (NJA). It also includes documentation of other professional
work undertaken by Solomonow such as his involvement as part of the Coalition Against Surveillance (CAS) in confronting the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for their exposed (1988) surveillance tactics aimed at many left-leaning groups; his involvement
in the Proposition "W" Campaign (1988) in San Francisco which called for US recognition of the Palestinian people's right
to self-determination and statehood; the planning and production of a Sharing Jerusalem advertisement in the
New York Times (1988); and significant documentation of Solomonow's many sponsored tours of the Middle East (early 1970s-2008).

The subseries on "American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)" is the largest of these subseries, itself divided into sub-subseries:
"Organizational materials," representing the work of various committees and programs; "Controversies," documenting several
of the professional disputes Solomonow found himself in over the years; and a collection of "Programming and subject files,"
which includes the public work undertaken by Solomonow and AFSC as well as collected material that informed this work.

A series of "Topical materials" consists of several groupings of files which demonstrate some of the ways that Solomonow thought
to organize collected literature over the years. There is a subseries of files containing material related to "Churches on
Middle East peace;" one on what Solomonow considered "Negative" reactions to his brand of peace work; one documenting "Doves
and nonviolence;" a subseries on "Palestine, Palestinians, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO);" a subseries of
materials on various named "Perspectives on Middle East peace;" a large collection of "Reference files, A-Z;" and a set of
"Topical files" grouped by headings: Arab, Education, International, Israel, Jewish, Negative, and Palestinians.

The series of "Publications" is made up of both "Monographs" (in the form of books, pamphlets, dissertations and short articles
from a range of perspectives on Middle East peace) as well as "Periodicals" collected by Solomonow. These materials are described
at the title level for both monographs and periodicals. However, there are additional published materials scattered throughout
the collection that should not be overlooked. There is also a full box of "Miscellaneous clippings, articles, and copies"
which were collected by Solomonow but never filed.

The final series, "Audiovisual materials," contains a large selection of photographic slides taken in the Middle East (some
for professionally produced programs, others perhaps more casually produced or collected), as well as a small number of audio
and video formats described by title.

Administrative Information

Publication Information

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, September 21, 2017

Finding Aid Author

Finding aid prepared by John Anderies

Access Restrictions

The collection is open for research.

The following files are restricted until 2022 at the request of Solomonow: Box 1, Folders 14-26; and Box 4, Folder 22. Researchers
interested in viewing these restricted file should email the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rarebooks, and Manuscripts
for permission.

Access to original audiovisual materials is restricted: Box 5, Folder 29; Box 22, Folder 31; Box 32, Folders 1, 4, 24-28;
and Box 36. The Kislak Center will provide access to the information on these materials from duplicate master files. If the
original does not already have a copy, it will be sent to an outside vendor for copying. Patrons are financially responsible
for the cost. The turnaround time from request to delivery of digital items is about two weeks for up to five items and three
to seven weeks for more than five items. Please contact Reprographic Services (reprogr@upenn.edu) for cost estimates and ordering.
Once digital items are received, researchers will have access to the files on a dedicated computer in the Van Pelt-Dietrich
Library Center. Researchers should be aware of specifics of copyright law and act accordingly.

Use Restrictions

Copyright restrictions may exist. For most library holdings, the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania do not hold copyright.
It is the responsibility of the requester to seek permission from the holder of the copyright to reproduce material from the
Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts.

Ad Hoc Committee of American Christians, "A Statement to the American Christian Community on the Arab-Israeli Conflict", 1969.

29

10

Advisory Committee on Human Rights in Lebanon, American Friends Service Committee,
Lebanon: Toward Legal Order and Respect for Human Rights, 1983.

28

23

Akram, Susan, et al. (The Palestine Center),
The International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the Legality of Israel's Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories:
Legal Analysis and Potential Consequences, 2004.

Awad, Mubarak E., and R. Scott Kennedy,
Nonviolent Struggle in the Middle East: The Druze of the Golan: A Case of Nonviolent Resistance; Nonviolent Resistance: A
Strategy for the Occupied Territories, 1983.

Henderson, Edward F. (American Educational Trust),
Maps and Mythology: What Israeli Records Reveal About the Land and People of Palestine, undated.

29

12

Hiltermann, Joost R. (Al-Haq/Law in the Service to Man),
Al-Haq's response to the Chapter on Israel and the Occupied Territories in the U.S. State Department's "Country Reports on
Human Rights Practices for 1984", 1986.

29

12

Hudson, Michael C. (American Committee for Justice in the Middle East),
The U.S. and the Mideast in the Second Nixon Administration, 1973.

29

12

Hunter, June (Washington Middle East Associates),
Undercutting Sanctions: Israel, the U.S. and South Africa, 1986.

29

12

International Crisis Group,
Disengagement and Its Discontents: What Will the Israeli Settlers Do?, 2005.

27

31

International Crisis Group,
Enter Hamas: The Challenges of Political Integration, 2006.

Israel Information Centre,
Information Briefing: Paperback Bibliography; An Annotated List of Books for Students of Israel and of the Arab-Israel Conflict, 1973.

29

12

Israel Information Centre,
What Is Zionism, 1985.

29

15

Jacobs, Paul,
The View from Tel Aviv and Beirut, undated.

29

13

James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy (Rice University), "Getting to the Territorial Endgame of an Israeli-Palestinian
Peace Settlement", 2010.

28

2

James, William,
The Moral Equivalent of War, 1960.

29

12

Jensen, Judith L., et al., (Educational Solutions Israel/Palestine International University Dialogue Project), "Understanding
Both Sides of the Israel/Palestine Conflict: An International University Dialogue", 2006.

28

3

Kahn, Arthur, and Thomas F. Murray (Americans for a Safe Israel),
The Palestinians: A Political Masquerade, 1977.

29

7

Kass, Dora, ed. (Friends of New Outlook),
The Middle East Between War and Peace: New Outlook International Symposium, 1979.

28

26

Kelley, Dean M., and Bernhard E. Olson (National Conference of Christians and Jews),
The Meaning and Conduct of Dialogue, undated.

Series VI. Recorded interviews (on cassette tape).

Conditions Governing Access note

Access to original audiovisual materials in this series is restricted. The Kislak Center will provide access to the information
on these materials from duplicate master files. If the original does not already have a copy, it will be sent to an outside
vendor for copying. Patrons are financially responsible for the cost. The turnaround time from request to delivery of digital
items is about two weeks for up to five items and three to seven weeks for more than five items. Please contact Reprographic
Services (reprogr@upenn.edu) for cost estimates and ordering. Once digital items are received, researchers will have access
to the files on a dedicated computer in the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center. Researchers should be aware of specifics of
copyright law and act accordingly.